A postman who admitted to making a phone call to a sex line from a customer’s house did it because “he wanted to talk”.

Paul Buswell, 38, of Galloway Close in Barwell, was sentenced at Hinckley Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday having earlier pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation.

He received a 12-month community order to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and have 12 months supervision. He will also have to pay a £60 victim surcharge.

The incident took place in September last year when he let himself into a house in Billington Road West in Elmesthorpe to use a landline to make the call when on his morning rounds.

The court heard the householder realised something was wrong when the phone went missing. The woman had returned home with her young son to find an answerphone message on her home phone. She went outside to tell her husband about the message from an insurance company and when she returned she saw the back of Buswell walking away from the house.

When the husband went to return the call he couldn’t find the handset.

Prosecutor Jo Chad said: “They paged the phone and heard it ringing from outside, on the lane side of their hedge, 20ft from their garden.

“They dialled the last number and found that it was an adult premium line instead of the insurance company.

“The householder knew the call must have been made sometime between when she had got in and when she was outside. The only person who had been in the house was the postman.”

When Buswell was interviewed by police in November he said he used sex lines around once a week for a year but stopped using them because he got bored.

Buswell, who had worked as a postman for 15 years, initially denied calling the number. He has since resigned from his position at Royal Mail.

In mitigation, Chris Black said: “My client says he has not used sex lines since then.

“He pleaded guilty at the first opportunity. This was not a planned offence - it was spur of the moment.

“At the time of the offence my client had been prescribed antidepressants but wasn’t taking the medication. He committed the offence when he should have been taking medication but wasn’t.

“In the report it says he just wanted to talk. That would fit in with his depressed state of mind.

“He has been overwhelmed by the support he has received from friends and relatives that this case has brought about. He has asked me to extend his apologies to the householder and his former work colleagues.”

Magistrate Sharon Maskrey-Brown said: “The more serious side of this case is that you used another person’s identity and you abused your position as a postman entering an address. However you have no previous offences and you have shown genuine remorse.”